Wagner & Kraus Families: NYC, 1890s-1910s

When Barbara Wagner arrived in New York on Aug 12, 1899 aboard the ship Southwark she was traveling with six children (George, 14; Barbara, 11; Henry, 9; Peter, 5; Anna, 4; and Elizabeth, 2). The passenger list shows that they were meeting Barbara’s husband, Peter Wagner, whose residence was 137 E 36^th St (corner of Lexington Av), New York City. Today, that address is coop apartments called the Carlton Regency, built in 1966. It is located in the Murray Hill part of the city, a very nice area to live from all appearances. That address is a two-block walk from my Great Aunt Edna's old apartment at 7 Park Av (built in 1931). What was the neighborhood like in 1899?

Mulberry St (Lower East Side), New York City, ca. 1900

 In 1899, the area from 27th St. on the south to 59th St. on the north, and from 3^rd Av east to the East River, was called the Kip's Bay-Turtle Bay neighborhood, sometimes known as the mid-town East Side. Huge industrial enterprises—breweries, laundries, slaughter houses, power plants—along the water front faced squalid tenements not far away from new apartment houses built in the area for its river view and its central position. The numerous plants showered this district with the heaviest fallout of soot in the city—150 tons to the square mile annually.

Early in the 19^th century this region was the site of the country estates of many prominent New Yorkers, among them Horace Greeley, the editor, and Francis Bayard Winthrop, bank director and poet. By the 1880's, however, the estates had been broken up into lots and rows of brownstones had been built. By 1899, much of the district was a slum. Elevated trains of the 2^nd and 3^rd  Av lines thundered by constantly, and 1^st Av, an important commercial traffic artery, brought an endless, noisy procession of trucks. Kip's and Turtle bays have long been filled in, and their names have vanished from maps.

On the site of the old Kip’s Bay was the Kip's Bay Station of the New York Steam Corporation, 1^st Av and 35^th St, which supplied steam to midtown skyscrapers, such as the New York Central, Chrysler, Lincoln, Chanin, and Empire State buildings. This service made possible the elimination of heating equipment in large buildings and the utilization of additional rent-able floor area. The steam was forced through underground conduits at a speed of 200 mph. The huge Waterside Station of the Consolidated Edison Company at 38^th Street and the East River, near the load center of the city, could generate 367,000 kilowatts of electricity.

The Kip’s Bay neighborhood adjoins, or even overlaps, what was known for over a century as the Gashouse District. Con Ed’s Waterside Station stood among coal-gas storage tanks that lined the East River along First Avenue through the blocks of the East 20s and 30s. Few remnants of the old neighborhood remain. The Con Ed generating station was torn down for Sheldon Solow's $4 billion dollar, 6 million square foot, East River development of seven glass towers, a public pavilion designed by Richard Meier, and 4.8 acres of gardens, lawns and Parisian-style esplanades. That development, currently under construction, is about a block from where Martin and Annie Kraus, and Grossmutter Wagner, lived in 1900.

Tenements covered many of the small lots in the East 30s from 1890 onwards. Their residents could find employment nearby; the Hupfels brewery and the Hoffman Cigar factory were two of the largest businesses near 334 E 38^th St, the first residence of the Kraus family and Grossmutter Wagner. As late as 1899, many lots in the immediate vicinity were either vacant or the site of ramshackle wood-frame structures dedicated to low-skill industrial or agricultural uses. Slaughter houses and packing houses filled the streets north of 42nd Street from the early 1850s until the United Nations was constructed in 1952.
 Many blocks of this area were razed in the 1930s for construction of the Midtown Tunnel.

Of the few buildings that remain from this time, 325 E 38^th St has an interesting history. There are identical doorways to # 325 that used to be separate men’s and women’s entrances to a public bath house. The photo below is of children standing on the sidewalk in front of # 325 in 1904. In the distance, you can see the iron superstructure of the 2nd Av elevated train (demolished in 1942), along with a gas-lit street-lamp. All the structures in the photo are long gone except for #325.

Photo from the Byron Collection – Museum of the City of New York

The 1899 map of New York shows sewer and water lines down each street. However, water closets in hallways and simple taps in the kitchens were the most that could be expected in many late 19th century tenements in New York. Bathing was only possible by filling tin bathtubs from the kitchen tap, a cumbersome procedure in crowded and busy flats. A once a week full body bath was custom and practice, but many went without for longer periods of time.

Photo from the Byron Collection – Museum of the City of New York

 The city government did not begin to take responsibility for the construction of desperately needed public bathhouses in tenement neighborhoods until the turn of the 20th century. Until then, private philanthropy for the most part supported the construction of public baths for those whose homes lacked them.

In June 1902, Elizabeth Milbank Anderson announced that she would donate a public bath, to be built on a 50 by 98-foot lot on East 38th Street (# 325) on behalf of the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor (the “AICP”). Anderson was heiress to a founder of the Borden Condensed Milk Co.; she was a leading New York philanthropist. During her lifetime she donated approximately $5 million to various institutions, principally Barnard College. The bathhouse that she donated, known as the Milbank Memorial Bath, opened in January 1904. It cost $140,000 to build and could accommodate 3,000 bathers daily. In 1914, the AICP established a wet-wash laundry at the Milbank bath.

The Wagners did not reside for all that long at 137 E 36^th St. I can only imagine Barbara’s reaction to the home her husband Peter had found them. In fact, on the 1899 map of New York, that address is shown as a brick stable. Perhaps the address was transcribed inaccurately on the ship's passenger list. By June 14, 1900 (date of the 1900 US census), the Wagner family had moved to Vandling, PA, where Peter had a job as a coal miner.

Martin and Annie Kraus, however, lived at 334 E 38^th St, even closer to the river and the coal gas storage tanks, in 1900. As they immigrated in 1892, they probably had been living there for the better part of eight years by 1900. By 1892, they had five daughters, Mary, Rose, Lena, Annie, and Ella. The 1910 census shows that Annie Kraus had had eight children but only five were living. All five daughters AND Grossmutter Wagner were living at 334 E 38^th St in 1900.

The Kraus residence would have been almost right across the street from the Milbank bath once it opened in 1904. Before that time, there undoubtedly wasn’t much bathing. Martin Kraus was a butcher in 1900, and likely worked at one of the local slaughter houses. Can you imagine working in a slaughterhouse and not having a place to shower at the end of the day? The census shows that 17 families, at least 78 people, lived in their tenement. An 1899 map of New York shows that the building faced north and was 5 stories tall. Given the number of families living in 334 E 38^th St, there must have been 4 tenements per floor. The street level was typically occupied by shops. Tenements were commonly three rooms, a front room (the only one with windows), a kitchen, and a bedroom, totaling about 325 square feet. Four doors down was the Hoffman Cigar Factory. One block away was the Kip's Bay Brewing Co. Two blocks away were the coal gas tanks.

Other families in the Kraus’s building were from Germany, Sweden, Spain, Ireland, Russia, and Hungary. Occupations of their neighbors were porter, steamfitter, butcher, waiter, tailor, several ironworkers, laundryman, laundress, cook, servant, lady’s maid, plumber, telephone operator, and bartender.

By 1910, the Kraus family had moved to 406 W 46^th St, in a neighborhood that in recent years has been gentrified but then, and for many years after, was known as Hell’s Kitchen. Their building faced north, had 5 stories, and was two lots over from a coal yard. Martin Kraus by then was working as a carpenter in a shop and his 18-yr-old daughter Ella was working as a clerk in a hotel. The census shows at least 21 people living in their building. Each family probably had their own floor. Families were from Ireland, Germany, and England. Occupations were carpenter, cashier, dressmaker, printer, saleslady, stenographer, book keeper, driver, and several hotel clerks. The only ones not working were several wives keeping house and a few children too young to work. By 1920, Martin and Annie Kraus has moved to Smithtown, Long Island. What a relief that must have been!



Internet sources: Gotham History Blotter, Gotham Center for New York City History;  New York Files; New York Public Library Digital Gallery; US Census data, ship's passenger lists, and other resources on ancestry.com.